Val's halla celebrates 33 1/3rd anniversary with LP tribute

While urging a regular customer this summer to come back for an upcoming sale to celebrate Val's halla Records' 33rd anniversary, the customer asked why not wait for the 33 1/3rd?

"It was a great idea, and we just kinda stood there looking at each other, like, why didn't we think of that?" said Val Camilletti, the Val in Val's.

So for all of November, all Long Playing 33 records will be discounted 33 percent. "We're paying homage to a form of music that's kept us here this long," Val said, adding that the form has all but disappeared from the music scene, but for "vinyl junkies."

They have it right when they say vinyl from the 1960s to the early 1980s has a better sound, Val said. That's in part because the recording business switched to digital recording in the late '80s to early '90s, leaving behind a richness that the digital process can't capture.

But there's more, Val said. She urges customers to listen to a CD of an album produced in the '70s, then listen to the LP, and hear the difference. "It isn't as much audio as it is a feeling," she said.

"The LP was something. For those of us who remember it coming out, it was miraculous. Twelve songs on one record?" Before, 45s were released with two songs, one on each side, A and B. To listen to two songs, you had to change the record every time.

There's something more substantial, too, about a dust jacket, a record and a needle that you just don't get with digital downloads, Val said.

But Val's halla might be heading the way of older technologies sooner than she'd hoped. A deal to purchase the building is pending, with closing expected in spring, Val said.

"What we don't have any idea about is what will happen after that," meaning, how long before everyone is moved out and the building is demolished.

Not wanting to relocate, Val's 33 rd might be her last anniversary sale.

But for now, Val's has "a lot of records" all one-third off, including a Frank Zappa boxed set she's particularly excited to offer.